Fame in film is a funny thing. There is the familiar fame of the matinee idol’s life, filled with flashbulbs and fanfare, premieres and paparazzi. It’s a fame that burns bright, but the heat is sometimes short lived, shooting off like a bottle rocket before falling back to earth.
Contrast that with the fame of someone who is revered largely for what they do behind the camera — the writers, directors, and cinematographers whose names are not always in the tabloids or on the lips of the public, but whose work has earned them legions of followers who delve deeper into what makes films tick. That fame tends to be a slower-building kind of appreciation, allowing its subject to build a legend over time and grow into their reputation.
Those two worlds rarely overlap, but when they do, the result can be explosive: a bona fide star whose career is followed by both the cognoscenti and the common man alike. And in all of cinema (and not just in cinema, remarkably) there has been no one, I’d wager, who managed the trick better than Orson Welles. An artist who was equal parts genius, impresario, and con man, Welles was both rooted in our collective artistic history and eager to help it evolve. His work in radio theater is legendary — and not just for his breathtaking War of the Worlds culture hack — but his lasting fame will more likely be due to his work in cinema, where films like Citizen Kane (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958) still serve as touchstones for students of the form.
This week, one of Welles’ lesser-seen films makes a rare area appearance when Amherst Cinema brings in Chimes At Midnight for a free 7 p.m. screening on Thursday May 12 (regular shows begin May 13). Presented with Amherst College’s Center for Humanistic Inquiry, in conjunction with the exhibition of Shakespeare’s First Folio (the rare first collection of the Bard’s work, on view at the school’s Mead Art Museum May 9 to 31), this new 4K restoration is classic Welles: a Shakespeare adaptation that is also a thoroughly up-to-date piece of cinematic art.
For Welles, simply adapting the Bard as an onscreen play would be a bore. Instead, his exploration of Falstaff draws from a number of Shakespeare’s plays, giving us a more faceted look at one of his most fascinating characters. And while the drama here is set in the 15th century, Welles’ portrayal of Falstaff — a comic knight whose zest for life proves to be his undoing — finds many echoes in the director’s own story.
It’s a sad thing that for a generation of filmgoers, Welles was known mostly for his later-life excursions into commercials: “We will sell no wine before its time,” was him, and a studio outtake of his objections during a recording session for a frozen food company has become something of a YouTube phenomenon. But if those are what you think of when you think of Welles, take this chance to see a bit of what made the legend before the fall.
Also this week: filmmaker brothers Bill and Turner Ross drop by Amherst Cinema on Tuesday night for a screening of their documentary Western, which examines life in Eagle Pass, Texas, where the U.S. and Mexico come together along the Rio Grande. As cartel violence leads to border closures, a local cattleman finds his livelihood — which depends on bringing cattle across the border to market — threatened. Contrasting our ideas of the American West with reality, the film is an eye-opening tour of an under-explored region.
And on Thursday May 12, gardeners and artists alike will want to take a look at Cinemark theaters in Hadley and West Springfield, where Painting the Modern Garden—Monet to Matisse will screen in a 7 p.m. show. The fifth film in the Art and Architecture in Cinema Series, this installment draws on an exhibition from The Cleveland Museum of Art and The Royal Academy, London, to show how artists used the structure and strong colors of the modern garden to explore radical ideas in painting. The screening is one night only, so put down the trowel, rinse off your hands, and head out for a show.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
